iFixit has announced the release of their Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit for the new 2011 Mac mini. This kit allows users to install a second hard inside their Mac mini. It includes a proprietary SATA hard drive cable, shock-absorbing mounting grommets, mounting screws, logic board removal tool, spudger, and a 26-piece bit driver kit. iFixit also posted a handy online guide with pictures and instructions to help users out with installation. The Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit from iFixit is priced at $69.95.

I wonder if Apple will respond by limiting/restricting supplies of the proprietary SATA cable (which presumeably iFixit buy as an Apple spare part)? Or has iFixit sourced its own compatible cable??_________________Martin at HeadSpin HD now on Blu-ray

Hey everyone, I have been reading the posts here and on Macrumors about the hard drive swap on the new mini. It seems that everyone is having an easy time doing it, I have a 2010 mini that I changed the drive twice and a few others that I did for neighbors and the only difference is the temperature cable on the hard drive and I find that the antenna screen is much, much harder to put back in on the 2011, it is a bear, at least mine was.

The new kit from macfixit will be correct, but there will be many more paper weights do to such a complete take down, in my opinion.

KC Not to be negative but why would the mini overheat? It is the same as the server, which has 2 hard drives and a single fan.

tom d

Agree, I haven't seen any reports of either the 2010 or 2011 mini's overheating. The 2011 will run a bit warmer, the processor runs warm and if equipped with the GPU and software utilizes it the computer will also run warmer. Seems people are a bit strong with vocabulary._________________2.3 GHz i7 Mini (stock)
2.6 GHz i7 Mini, Samsung 830 & Hitachi
15" 2.3 GHz i7 MBP, Samsung 840 & WD Black
3.5GHz 6C MP, D700s

Yes, this is true that the 2011 does not have a temperature control wire on the second or first hard drive, where as the 2010 has a wire on the hard drive. I have the base on the 2011, and a non server model on the 2010.

However, not to make this a pi___ match, smc fan control works in both models. It has no cable in either model, just software, it is able to take advantage of the cable in the 2010 but not 2011. Apple must have software or something that makes their fan run faster in each model, or they would overheat, because there is no cable.

The 2011 mini queries the drive itself for temperature. I put a OWC SSD and it reports 128C. Asked OWC and they say don't worry as their drives don't report temps so data is false. The mini doesn't do anything with the fan so it must ignore the temp.

My mini overheated saturday night, fan shut down and internal temps reached over 100 degrees C. Then it wouldn't boot. It was two weeks old and had it replaced. Before it shutdown for the final time, I took screen shots.